Can you make white people laugh?

Being dyslexic. I trained as an actor, but because of my dyslexia I have great trouble sight-reading. So I kept going to auditions and not getting the roles. Then one day I went to a comedy club and asked if I could tell some jokes. It was 27 years ago, when there were no black British female standups. I became the first.

What was your big breakthrough?

Writing my first show, Funny Black Women on the Edge, in 1994. I wanted to write a sketch show that didn’t have black women playing the stereotypical nurse – where we could be a bit glam, a bit sexy. So I wrote this and put it on at the community centre in Peckham, London. It sold out every night and things just took off from there.